


Bitter Spruce's Warning

by runnerfiveisacat



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fantasy, M/M, Magic, New World, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:15:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29441031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runnerfiveisacat/pseuds/runnerfiveisacat
Summary: Sondra is the Marshall of her village and has elemental powers and has not found her true mate yet.  She catches thieves and sends them to rehabilitation in her village.  The carnivorous conifer tree gives her a warning about a possible invasion force.  She needs to evacuate her village to the capital quickly and meets the one person she's been seeking for a long time.I'll update tags as needed for each chapter.
Relationships: Family - Relationship, Royalty - Relationship, True Mates - Relationship





	Bitter Spruce's Warning

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fiction in a very long time. Please be kind. This story will have M/F smut in it, eventually.

“It’s time to make a decision,” Sondra yelled while suspending the man in the air, both her hands above her head. The man looked terrified as he was 30 feet off the ground and could hear thunder close by. 

“Either repent and pay off your theft with labor, or I will call upon lightening to end you,” her voice purposefully projected for effect. 

The man with ripped and dirty clothes simply replied, “Mercy,” and bowed his head in submission. Sondra smiled internally. She hated dragging fried bodies back to the Bitter Spruce tree. Burying bodies was most difficult in this rocky terrain. She lowered her right hand slowly and the man came down by some scrub and promptly went to his knees. Sondra kept her left hand active, ready to summon lightning as needed. 

“So,” she began, “you stole and ate the Trewws’ lamb. You will work off the cost of the lamb.” 

He nodded, “Yes, lightening mistress.” 

She detected no malice and continued, unlike the thief three months ago. That thief agreed to rehabilitation but attacked her as they transversed the meadow. She couldn't get the smell of charred flesh from her clothes and ended up buring them with his bones.

“You will stay with Jor of the Rocks. If you behave after 3 months, you will be provided your own sheep in which to care and you will receive your clan name.”

“Yes, mistress.” 

He raised his hand shakily to show he was unmated, his eyes to the ground. She groaned internally but proceeded to touch her index finger to his. She worried for a few seconds if there were a match, how would that look to the village, bringing home a straggler, a thief, someone filthy and ragged. She felt nothing with the touch and her vision remained the same. Her breath left her chest hard. 

She escorted him down the rocky hills toward the village. 

“So,” the prisoner started, “does the village have a lot of mated pairs?" A few steps later, he looked at her from the side and nearly whispered "Are they traditionally mated pairs?" 

Sondra thought about his words more than a few seconds longer than normal. Her uncle was the village leader a few years ago. Great uncle Aino. She knew him as a very cranky, quick tempered man, but who knew sheep and how to lead people well. He was unmated, until Timmus visited the village and Aino actually smiled readily. They both worked over the council to change the law on same gender mating principles. But, both have been gone a few years now.

“About dozen or so. As long as the pair is over 18 years old and both agree to the bond, we’re good. My Great Uncle Aino bonded with Timmus from the village over when I was a small child. Both gone now,” she looked at the filthy man, “fever came through.” She thought she saw the man’s wrinkles on his forehead relax for the first time today. 

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you for sparing me.” 

As Marshall, Sondra devised a new method of rehabilitation two years ago. The village of Sewett has no jails and now no need to import workers or export its women for marriage possibilities. 

She could see Sewett and Jor’s cabin and they would arrive in a few minutes. This won’t be Jor’s first time doing rehab. He was one of her first rehabilitation captures. Jor reminded her of the man walking to her side, overly thin and filthy. 

“My name is,” he began. 

She interrupted immediately and said with confidence, “Your name is now Solomon. All that was you, is no more. Once you cross over the border of Sewett, you will start new.” 

She watched his expression go from confused to angry to peaceful within a minute. Her left hand slowly dropped to her side. Sondra rapped the door four times and a tall man with flax hair opened. He leaned against the frame showing his large biceps to the visitors. Easily over six feet, he barely cleared the door frame. Immediately, he scowled at the filthy visitor. 

“Jor,”, she said, “this is Solomon. He will be staying with you for at least three months. He needs to repay the Trewws a lamb. After three months, the village will provide him an ewe.”. 

Jor nodded stiffly, looked Solomon up and down, assessing his new charge. “Ya need clothes and food in ya. Come in. Ya need a bath first, Sol.” Jor looked at Sondra, nodded, and she took it as a dismissal. 

She was the Marshall, not the one to administer the rehabilitation. Eight new men and two women have been integrated into the village the past two years while three unfortunate souls wanted to fight. 

Sondra looked toward her next destination back up the hill to the meadows for her training session. 

Training sessions start when the sun is at the peak and can last a few days depending on the lesson and weather. Gebhard of Mortosf sensed her affinity with air at age 10 and started to train her in between her milking her family sheep and goats. He lived in the village two hour walk away and had his own husbandry and familial responsibilities. 

“She’s got the talent,” Gebhard explained to Sondra’s father, Tomas, years ago. “Yer village lacks the natural talent, ‘cept for her. Maybe next year another will bloom.”

Sondra watched her father closes his eyes. Unsure if he was angry, or sad, she asked, “Who will train me?” 

“I will, little one. Go up there hill and meet me at the outpost on first Sunday after the full moon, and I’ll train ya.”

She beamed at Gebhard and her dad exhaled with some hope in his voice, “Fine. My mother had the gift. Helped the sheep birth lambs.” 

Gebhard grunted, “She doesn’t have healing magic. Somethin’ else.” 

That was fifteen years ago. 

As Sondra grew older, she realized that Geb wasn’t much out of adolescence when he first discovered her talent. 

“Hello little butterfly,” Sondra whispered trying to avoid disturbing the insect. 

She reached the training point sooner than she planned. “Hello,” she called out. “Gebhard, are you around?” She knocked on the outpost cabin door. No candles were lit inside. The grass around was not disturbed. He hadn’t arrived yet. 

“Nope, not going in there yet,” she said, “too nice out here.” 

The Bitter Spruce wasn’t far off. The outpost cabin was purposefully built by the Bitter Spruce was to guard it and guard against it. That tree could defend itself. Mostly, it ate critters that came too close to it via its root system. She saw it once eat a weasel as a root came out of a trap door covered in confer needles. 

“Pretty spruce tree, how are you,” Sondra started to sing, “are you doing fine? It is your friend Sondra. I’ve come to give you water today.”   
She waited well outside the root ball until a branch moved. Such a rare tree this is, she thought, the only one around here. 

Sondra poured some water from her canteen continuing to sing, “Here’s some water pretty tree. I hope you enjoy it. You are beautiful and your needles are healthy.” 

Gebhard was very careful around the tree and taught her to sing next to it, and to present gifts when she arrived. They both hoped it would keep the tree happy with them. As she was pouring water, two cones, filled with seeds, hit her in the head. She’d never seen cones on this tree prior. 

She looked up and no other cones were on the tree. “Pretty spruce tree, you gave me a gift. I would like to talk with you,” she sang, “I’m going to touch your beautiful bark now, please do not eat me.” 

Again, a branch bowed slightly. Opposite of the trap door, she approached and gently put her hand on the bark.  
It takes a while for large beings to talk. And because it was a carnivorous tree, it was pretty lonely. Slow talker and it had much to say. Sondra had to sit down next to the trunk. The pictures pushing in her head were overwhelming to process. Rabbits and mice recently stopped by and were consumed as was a robin. Sondra became impatient and wanted to understand why she had the tree’s seeds. 

“Pretty, lovely tree, why do you gift me with your children?” she sang. 

If trees could sigh audibly, this one would’ve. But it shimmied a few of the lower branches instead. More images came to Sondra. She saw Solomon’s boots, a wolf that was not eaten, and the thunderstorm from a few nights ago. She could hear the thunder in her mind and it caused her to become drowsy. 

She saw black boots, 50 or more, marching behind the tree. Uniforms different from the Kingdom of Witu. Much different. No one had swords or pikes, or axes. Instead, they carried black metal with a cylinder at the end of each one. She could hear the leader barking orders but didn’t understand what he was saying. The image cut to the cone with seeds at a locations Sondra did not recognize. The image was of her planting the seeds in the ground. No rocks or hills were around. This was not in the Kingdom, she knew.


End file.
